I’m back from a motorbike trip in southern India with my son Ben. We were on the road for seven days between Trivandrun and Mysore. This picture shows us traveling through a tiger reserve, so no people, no stopping, little traffic and in fact no tigers to be seen. Generally, the roads were very crowed with motorised two-wheelers, cars, buses, trucks and pedestrians. What was remarkable was the skill everyone exercised to avoid collisions, a good example of ‘shared space’, the concept that we can safely share road space if we look out for each other. The absence of a kerb, general in India, signals that the road is to be shared. This was the case in the developed countries in the past, until it was judged that pedestrians had better be segregated from vehicles for their safety. But now we think that such segregation can be successfully reversed, with no loss of safety. My experience in India is that a rider/driver is naturally very alert to others on the road whose behaviour my be hard to anticipate.
mo